Dutch Colonization Dutch and English Colonization in New England Although the Netherlands only controlled the Hudson River Valley from 1609 until 1664, in that short time, Dutch entrepreneurs established New Netherland, a series of trading posts, towns, and forts up and down the Hudson River that laid the groundwork for towns that still exist today. Fort Orange, the northernmost of the Dutch outposts, is known today as Albany; New York City's original name was New Amsterdam, and the New Netherland's third major settlement, Wiltwyck, is known today as Kingston. Unlike New York City and Albany, however, where the traces of colonization can be difficult to find, in Kingston, the history of New York's Dutch colonization is quite evident. In 1609, two years after English settlers established the colony of Jamestown in Virginia, the Dutch East India Company hired English sailor Henry Hudson to find a northeast passage to India. After unsuccessfully searching for a route above Norway, Hudson turned his ship west and sailed across the Atlantic.

Hudson hoped to discover a "northwest passage," that would allow a ship to cross the entirety of the North American continent and gain access to the Pacific Ocean, and from there, India. After arriving off the coast of Cape Cod, Hudson eventually sailed into the mouth of a large river, today called the Hudson River. Making his way as far as present-day Albany before the river became too shallow for his ship to continue north, Hudson returned to Europe and claimed the entire Hudson River Valley for his Dutch employers. After unsuccessful efforts at colonization, the Dutch Parliament chartered the "West India Company," a national-joint stock company that would organize and oversee all Dutch ventures in the Western Hemisphere. Sponsored by the West India Company, 30 families arrived in North America in 1624, establishing a settlement on present-day Manhattan. Much like English colonists in Virginia, however, the Dutch settlers did not take much of an interest in agriculture, and focused on the more lucrative fur trade. In 1626, Director General Peter Minuit arrived in Manhattan, charged by the West India Company with the task of administering the struggling colony.

Minuit "purchased" Manhattan Island from Native American Indians for the now legendary price of 60 guilders, formally established New Amsterdam, and consolidated and strengthened a fort located far up the Hudson River, named Fort Orange. The colony grew slowly, as settlers, responding to generous land-grant and trade policies, slowly spread north up the Hudson River. The slow expansion of New Netherland, however, caused conflicts with both English colonists and Native Americans in the region. In the 1630s, the new Director General Wouter van Twiller sent an expedition out from New Amsterdam up to the Connecticut River into lands claimed by English settlers. Faced with the prospect of armed conflict, Twiller was forced to back down and recall the expedition, losing any claims to the Connecticut Valley. In the upper reaches of the Hudson Valley around Fort Orange, (present-day Albany) where the needs of the profitable fur trade required a careful policy of appeasement with the Iroquois Confederacy, the Dutch authorities maintained peace, but corruption and lax trading policies plagued the area. In the lower Hudson Valley, where more colonists were setting up small farms, Native Americans came to be viewed as obstacles to European settlement.

In the 1630s and early 1640s, the Dutch Director Generals carried on a brutal series of campaigns against the area's Native Americans, largely succeeding in crushing the strength of the "River Indians," but also managing to create a bitter atmosphere of tension and suspicion between European settlers and Native Americans. Director General Peter Stuyvesant The year 1640 marked a turning point for the colony. The West India Company gave up its trade monopoly, enabling other businessmen to invest in New Netherland. Profits flowed to Amsterdam, encouraging new economic activity in the production of food, timber, tobacco, and eventually, slaves. In 1647, the most successful of the Dutch Director Generals arrived in New Amsterdam. Peter Stuyvesant found New Netherland in disarray. The previous Director General's preoccupation with the Native Americans and border conflicts with the English in Connecticut had greatly weakened other portions of colonial society. Stuyvesant became a whirlwind of activity, issuing edicts, regulating taverns, clamping down on smuggling, and attempted to wield the authority of his office upon a population accustomed to a long line of largely ineffective Director Generals.

Eventually, Stuyvesant cast his eyes upon the small settlements that had developed along the Hudson River Valley between Fort Orange and New Amsterdam. In 1652, 60-70 settlers had moved down from Fort Orange to an area where the Rondout Creek met the Hudson River, the site of present-day Kingston. The settlers farmed the fertile flood plains of the Esopus Creek side-by-side with the Esopus Indians, the original settlers of the area. Inevitably, land disputes brought the two sides to the brink of war, with both the Europeans and the Esopus Indians engaging in petty vandalism and kidnaping. In 1657, seeing the strategic practicality of a fort located halfway between New Amsterdam and Fort Orange, Director General Stuyvesant sent soldiers up from New Amsterdam to crush the Esopus Indians and help build a stockade with 40 houses for the settlers. Board by board, the settlers took their barns and houses down, and carted them uphill to a promontory bluff overlooking the Esopus Creek flood plain.

They reconstructed their homes behind a 14-foot high wall made of tree trunks pounded into the ground that created a perimeter of about 1200 x 1300 feet. By day, the men left their walled village, which Director General Stuyvesant had named "Wiltwyck," to go out and farm their fields, leaving the women and children largely confined within the stockade. The villagers lived this way until 1664, when a peace treaty ended the conflict with the Esopus Indians. Original layout of the Kingston Stockade Though no longer needed, the stockade was left standing well into the late 17th century, and wooden remnants of the wall were actually rediscovered on Clinton Ave during an archaeological dig in 1971. The streets of the original village, however, remain laid out just as they were in 1658. Although the wooden houses of original settlers are long gone, the second generation of homes, built by men like Sergeant Matthew Person , still survive.

These stone houses are fine examples of 17th-century Dutch stone buildings, and 21 still stand within the original layout of the stockade, listed in the National Register of Historic Places as contributing members of the Stockade Historic District . Many of these homes began as a single room with a loft above, and gradually expanded, but the simple limestone and mortar materials hauled directly from the fields outside the stockade are still quite visible. Direct links to the age of Dutch colonization, the sturdy construction of these houses have served generations of Kingston residents, and are still in use today. Although Wiltwyck, the second large settlement established north of New Amsterdam, grew quickly, the very successes of the Stuyvesant administration put New Netherland in danger. The colony was proving quite profitable, New Amsterdam had developed into a port town of 1500 citizens, and the incredibly diverse population (only 50 percent were actually Dutch colonists) of the colony had grown from 2,000 in 1655 to almost 9,000 in 1664. "Problems" with Native Americans were mostly over, and stable families were slowly replacing single adventurers interested only in quick profits.

New Netherland produced immense wealth for the Dutch, and other foreign nations began to envy the riches flowing out of the Hudson River Valley. The Dutch lost New Netherland to the English during the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1664 only a few years after the establishment of Wiltwyck. Along the West Coast of Africa, British charter companies clashed with the forces of the Dutch West India Company over rights to slaves, ivory, and gold in 1663. Less about slaves or ivory, the Anglo-Dutch Wars were actually more about who would be the dominant European naval power. By 1664, both the Dutch and English were preparing for war, and King Charles of England granted his brother, James, Duke of York, vast American territories that included all of New Netherland. James immediately raised a small fleet and sent it to New Amsterdam. Director General Stuyvesant, without a fleet or any real army to defend the colony, was forced to surrender the colony to the English war fleet without a struggle.

In September of 1664, New York was born, effectively ending the Netherlands' direct involvement in North America, although in places like Kingston, the influences of Dutch architecture, planning, and folklife can still be quite clearly seen. Fort Orange | A Tour of New Netherland A Tour of New Netherland A Tour of New Netherland Fort Orange Fort Orange 1635 © L.F. Tantillo & M.B. Picotte Fort Orange 1635 © L.F. Tantillo & M.B. Picotte Fort Orange In 1624, the West India Company made its first attempt at establishing a permanent trading and military presence at the spot where the earlier Fort Nassau had failed. They named this outpost Fort Orange, after the same noble family, and placed it a short distance away from the abandoned fort, on the mainland. By now, the fur trade was established. Fort Orange was located five miles south of the confluence of the Mohawk River Valley and the Hudson River, at a spot where Indians would bring furs along an overland pass, thus avoiding the Cohoes Falls to the north.

Furs from lands to the west were bought and collected here, and then shipped downriver to Manhattan; from there they were sent to Europe. The handful of soldiers and traders located at Fort Orange were thus at the most vital nexus in the Dutch colony, the place at which the choicest product of the American wilderness-the beaver pelt-was transferred to European markets. These few hearty souls were also (quite unbeknownst to them) the progenitors of the future city of Albany, New York. Fort Orange suffered a setback in 1626, when a Mohawk party attacked the fort's commander, Daniel Van Crieckenbeek, and a group of his soldiers in nearby woods, killing Van Crieckenbeek and three of his men. Van Crieckenbeek had been assisting the Mahicans in an attack on the Mohawks when the Mohawks ambushed him and his troops. The results were fatal to him, and crippling to Fort Orange. Following the attack, the colony's leader, Peter Minuit, ordered all personnel from outlying areas to gather for safety on Manhattan Island, leaving only a skeleton presence behind at Fort Orange.

The Dutch were always careful recorders of events, and these goings-on on the North River (i.e., the Hudson River) of the New World colony were followed in the Netherlands. In about 1630, a director of the West India Company published an account of the settlement of New Netherland in which he wrote dispassionately and accurately of the fort: They have there, at the uppermost part of the North River, in the latitude of 43 degrees or thereabouts, a small fort, which our people call Fort Orange, round about which several colonizers have settled themselves under the patronage of the aforesaid company. And again another fort of greater importance at the mouth of the same North River, upon an island which they call Manhattes or Manhatans Island. In the years following the killing of Van Crieckenbeek and his men, traders, lured by the possibility of good money to be had from beaver pelts, slowly repopulated the fort and its surroundings. When Petrus Stuyvesant took charge of the colony in 1647 he was determined that the fort and the community surrounding it should flourish.

But a complicating factor had arisen in the meantime-another Dutch-controlled entity had laid claim to the area. To learn about it and continue the saga of Albany's beginnings, go on to Rensselaerswijck. Fort Orange itself has long disappeared, but history has a way of coming back at you. Click here to learn about a proposal to turn the Albany waterfront into a memorial to Fort Orange and the city's Dutch beginnings. Hartgen Associates has completed an archaeological excavation of a part of Dean Street in downtown Albany, unearthing artifacts-including Delft porcelain tiles-that go all the way to the Dutch period. Here is a paper from the archives of the Rensselaerswijck Seminar on the archaeology of Fort Orange and Beverwijck. What Was New Netherland?: New Netherland Research Center: New York State Library New Netherland Research Center NYSED / OCE / NYSL / Research Library / New Netherland Research Center / What Was New Netherland? What Was New Netherland? New Netherland was the first Dutch colony in North America.

It extended from Albany, New York, in the north to Delaware in the south and encompassed parts of what are now the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, and Delaware. The Dutch claim to this territory derived from their sponsorship of Henry Hudson’s voyages of exploration. In 1609, Hudson and his crew sailed the ship de Halve Maen (the Half Moon) from the Delaware Bay up to the river now named for Hudson. Upon his return to the Netherlands, Hudson described what he had found: a magnificent harbor, wide navigable rivers, and a land rich in natural resources. The commercial possibilities of New Netherland attracted considerable interest during the era known as the Dutch Golden Age, when the newly independent United Provinces of the Netherlands became Europe's leading commercial power and Amsterdam its preeminent trading city. Soon after Hudson's report was made public, merchants and investors started sponsoring speculative voyages to the new colony. In 1621, the Dutch government chartered the West India Company with the goal both of bringing order to economic activity in New Netherland and of challenging Spanish influence in the New World. Colonists arrived in New Netherland from all over Europe.

Many fled religious persecution, war, or natural disaster. Others were lured by the promise of fertile farmland, vast forests, and a lucrative trade in fur. Initially, beaver pelts purchased from local Indians were the colony’s primary source of wealth. In Europe, these pelts were used to produce fashionable men’s hats. Over time, the Dutch colony’s economy broadened and diversified. It became an entrepôt for Chesapeake tobacco and a hub of trade between New England and the Caribbean. New Netherland developed into a culturally diverse and politically robust settlement. This diversity was fostered by Dutch respect for freedom of conscience. Furthermore, under Dutch rule, women enjoyed legal, civil, and economic rights denied their British counterparts in New England and Virginia. Towns within New Netherland were granted the protections and privileges of self-government. New Amsterdam, thus, became the first European-style chartered city in the thirteen original colonies that would comprise the United States. Dutch success produced many rivals, the English chief among them. Between 1652 and 1674, the two nations fought three wars. As a consequence of these wars, New Netherland came under British control in 1664.

Despite this transfer of power, Dutch influence remained strong in the former New Netherland, throughout the seventeenth century and beyond; many parts of the colony remained culturally Dutch up to and beyond the American Revolution. Last Updated: March 18, 2014 New York colony history Dutch Colony The first settlements in New York were made in 1624, when the Dutch West India Company sent out a boatload of colonists. Most of the settlers established themselves in the northern Hudson Valley, near the future site of Albany, at Fort Orange. The next year more colonists arrived and made their home on the lower tip of Manhattan, at a site that came to be known as New Amsterdam. In 1626 the governor of the colony, Peter Minuit, purchased Manhattan from the local Native Americans for trinkets valued at about $24. The Dutch colony, called New Netherland, grew slowly at first, because the Dutch West India Company neglected the northern outposts in favor of its holdings in the rich West Indies. A handful of traders supplied the Native Americans who brought in furs, the regions prime resource.

In 1629, however, the company offered its members large estates, called patroonships, if they would send settlers to New Netherland. Most of these ventures did not succeed, because few Dutch wanted to leave their homeland. In 1637 the company appointed Willem Kieft director-general of New Netherland. A dictatorial leader, Kieft drove the colony into war in 1641 with the Algonquian tribes of the area. After a series of disputes arose between settlers and natives over land ownership, Kieft tried to impose a tax on the Native Americans to help pay for fortification of the settlements. When the tribes refused, Kieft caused the massacre of more than 100 native inhabitants. Four years of raids and reprisals by both sides followed, in which more than 1000 Native Americans and settlers were killed. Kieft was replaced in 1647 by Peter Stuyvesant. Although honest and efficient, Stuyvesant also used dictatorial methods in governing the colonists, who opposed high taxes on imports and demanded a voice in the government.

Meanwhile, English colonists had expelled Dutch settlers from the Connecticut Valley and founded settlements on present-day Long Island. In 1650 Stuyvesant was forced to cede all of Long Island east of Oyster Bay to Connecticut, an English colony. English Colony In 1664 King Charles II of England decided to take over the entire region, basing his claim on the explorations made for England by explorer John Cabot in 1497 and 1498. Charles granted to his brother James, Duke of York and Albany, all the land between the Connecticut and Delaware rivers. To enforce the English claim, Colonel Richard Nicolls sailed into New York Harbor with four ships and 400 soldiers. Stuyvesant wanted to fight, but the citizens of New Amsterdam were unwilling to resist. New Netherland and New Amsterdam were renamed New York. Beverwyck, the settlement that grew up around Fort Orange, became known as Albany. In 1665 Nicolls, the first English governor of the colony, called a meeting of the representatives of settlers living on Long Island and in what is now Westchester County.

He refused their request for an assembly, but he gave them some degree of local self-government. A document, called the Dukes Laws, provided for the election of town boards and constables and guaranteed freedom of worship. Later these rights were granted to the rest of the province. In 1682 Thomas Dongan was made governor. He called a representative assembly, which in 1683 adopted the Charter of Liberties and Privileges. This charter called for an elected legislature to levy taxes and make laws, and it guaranteed trial by jury and freedom of worship. Dongan gave New York and Albany charters providing for limited home rule and trading rights. He also cultivated the goodwill of the Iroquois, who were a buffer between New York and the French colony in Canada. The guarantees of the charter never went into effect. In 1685 the Duke of York and Albany became king as James II, and he included New York within the Dominion of New England, a colony that incorporated most of New England under the close control of a royal governor. New Yorkers were infuriated when James dismissed Dongan and placed them under Sir Edmund Andros, the dominions governor, who ruled from Boston.

Land Grants The English governors of New York gave huge tracts of land to their friends, which resulted in only a small number of landowners. Many of these landlords were more interested in land speculation than in settlement, so the colonys population grew slowly outside the major towns. Of special importance in New Yorks history were the manors, large land holdings whose owners had almost unlimited power over them. Six such manors covered more than half of present-day Westchester County. The only successful Dutch patroonship, Rensselaerswyck, became a manor under the English. Located near Albany, it consisted of more than 280,000 hectares (700,000 acres). The Manor of Saint George, on Long Island, was more than 80 km (50 miles) long and covered the central part of the island from shore to shore. The landholding aristocracy and the wealthy merchants of New York City controlled colonial affairs. Among the most prominent and influential families were the Livingstons, Schuylers, De Lanceys, and Van Cortlandts.

Most of New Yorks small farmers were located on Long Island and along the Hudson River in what is now Ulster County. Leislers Rebellion In 1689 news arrived in New York that James II had been overthrown in Englands Glorious Revolution and that Andros, governor of the Dominion of New England, had been captured by Boston rebels. A group of armed New Yorkers called on Jacob Leisler, a German-born merchant, to take command of the colony. Leisler was stubborn and ill-tempered, but he championed the peoples rebellion against the local aristocracy of landlords and merchants. He won control over the whole colony and established an assembly. In 1691 King William III, who had replaced James II, sent Colonel Henry Sloughter to take charge of New York. Sloughter listened to the charges of Leislers enemies and immediately set up a special court that convicted Leisler of treason. Leisler was executed, and for 20 years the colony remained split into two camps with hostile interests.

The State of New York - definition of The State of New York by The Free Dictionary The State of New York - definition of The State of New York by The Free Dictionary New York Abbr. NY or N.Y. 1. A state of the northeast United States. One of the original Thirteen Colonies, it was explored by Samuel de Champlain and Henry Hudson and claimed by the Dutch in 1624 but fell to the English in 1664-1667. New York ratified the United States Constitution in 1788. The building of the Erie Canal and railroad lines in the 1820s and 1830s led to development of the western part of the state and great economic prosperity, establishing New York City as the financial center of the nation. Albany is the capital and New York City the largest city. 2. or New York City A city of southern New York on New York Bay at the mouth of the Hudson River. Founded by the Dutch as New Amsterdam, it was renamed by the English in honor of the Duke of York. It is the largest city in the country and a major commercial and cultural center.

Originally consisting only of Manhattan Island, it was rechartered in 1898 to include the five present-day boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. New York′er n. New York n 1. (Placename) Also called: New York City a city in SE New York State, at the mouth of the Hudson River: the largest city and chief port of the US; settled by the Dutch as New Amsterdam in 1624 and captured by the British in 1664, when it was named New York; consists of five boroughs (Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island, which was called Richmond until 1975) and many smaller islands, with its commercial and financial centre in Manhattan; the country's leading commercial and industrial city. Pop: 8 085 742 (2003 est). Abbreviation: N.Y.C. or NYC 2.

(Placename) a state of the northeastern US: consists chiefly of a plateau with the Finger Lakes in the centre, the Adirondack Mountains in the northeast, the Catskill Mountains in the southeast, and Niagara Falls in the west. Capital: Albany. Pop: 19 190 115 (2003 est). Area: 123 882 sq km (47 831 sq miles). Abbreviation: N.Y. or NY (with zip code) New` York′ n. 1. Also called New′ York` State′. a state in the NE United States. 18,976,457; 49,576 sq. mi. (128,400 sq. km). Cap.: Albany. Abbr.: NY, N.Y. 2. Also called New′ York` Cit′y. a seaport in SE New York at the mouth of the Hudson: comprising the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island. 7,380,906. 3.

Greater, New York City, the counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland, and Westchester in New York, and the counties of Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, and Union in New Jersey: the metropolitan area as defined by the U.S. census. 17,412,652. 4. the borough of Manhattan. New` York′er, n. battle of Saratoga , Saratoga - a battle during the American Revolution (1777); the British under Burgoyne were defeated Cornell University - a university in Ithaca, New York Tappan Zee Bridge - a cantilever bridge across the Hudson River U.S.A. , United States , United States of America , US , USA , America , the States , U.S.

- North American republic containing 50 states - 48 conterminous states in North America plus Alaska in northwest North America and the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean; achieved independence in 1776 Mid-Atlantic states - a region of the eastern United States comprising New York and New Jersey and Pennsylvania and Delaware and Maryland Bedloe's Island , Liberty Island - an island in New York Bay to the southwest of Manhattan where the Statue of Liberty stands; "Congress officially changed the name from Bedloe's Island to Liberty Island in 1956" New Netherland - a Dutch colony in North America along the Hudson and lower Delaware rivers although the colony centered in New Amsterdam; annexed by the English in 1664 Albany , capital of New York - state capital of New York; located in eastern New York State on the west bank of the Hudson river Buffalo - a city on Lake Erie in western New York (near Niagara Falls) Cooperstown - a small town in east central New York; site of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Erie Canal - an artificial waterway connecting the Hudson river at Albany with Lake Erie at Buffalo; built in the 19th century; now part of the New York State Barge Canal Greater New York ,

 New York , New York City - the largest city in New York State and in the United States; located in southeastern New York at the mouth of the Hudson river; a major financial and cultural center Ithaca - a college town in central New York on Lake Cayuga West Point - United States Army installation on the west bank of Hudson river to the north of New York City; site of United States Military Academy Long Island - an island in southeastern New York; Brooklyn and Queens are on its western end Binghamton - a city in south central New York near the border with Pennsylvania Kingston - a town on the Hudson River in New York Newburgh - a town on the Hudson River in New York; in 1782 and 1783 it was George Washington's headquarters Niagara Falls - a city in western New York State at the falls of the Niagara river; tourist attraction and honeymoon resort Rochester - a city in western New York; a center of the photographic equipment industry Schenectady - a city of eastern New York on the Mohawk river; it prospered after the opening of the Erie Canal Syracuse - a city in central New York Utica - a city in central New York Saratoga Springs - a town in eastern New York State famed for its

 spa and its horse racing Watertown - a town in northern New York Adirondack Mountains , Adirondacks - a mountain range in northeastern New York State; a popular resort area Allegheny , Allegheny River - a river that rises in Pennsylvania and flows north into New York and then back south through Pennsylvania again to join the Monongahela River at Pittsburgh which is the beginning of the Ohio River American Falls - a part of Niagara Falls in western New York (north of Buffalo) Catskill Mountains , Catskills - a range of the Appalachians to the west of the Hudson in southeastern New York; includes many popular resort areas Delaware , Delaware River - a river that rises in the Catskills in southeastern New York and flows southward along the border of Pennsylvania with New York and New Jersey to northern Delaware where it empties into Delaware Bay Hudson , Hudson River - a New York river; flows southward into New York Bay; explored by Henry Hudson early in the 17th century Lake Champlain , Champlain - a lake in northeastern New York, northwestern Vermont and southern Quebec; site of many battles in the French and Indian War and in the American Revolution and in the War of 1812 Mohawk River - a river of

 central New York that flows southeastward to the Hudson River Niagara , Niagara Falls - waterfall in Canada is the Horseshoe Falls; in the United States it is the American Falls Susquehanna , Susquehanna River - a river in the northeastern United States that rises in New York and flows southward through Pennsylvania and Maryland into Chesapeake Bay Taconic Mountains - a range of the Appalachian Mountains along the eastern border of New York with Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont 3.

New York - one of the British colonies that formed the United States Fort Ticonderoga , Ticonderoga - a pitched battle in which American revolutionary troops captured Fort Ticonderoga from the British in 1775 Translations New Amsterdam – Stoutenburgh-Teller Family Association New Amsterdam New Amsterdam Dutch Colony Be sure to check out our maps page for maps of early New York as well as our illustrations page for visual depictions of life in early New York. New York was originally settled as a colony of the Netherlands following Henry Hudson’s exploration in 1609 of the river later named for him. In 1624 the Dutch established Fort Orange at modern Albany as the first permanent European settlement in New York . One year later, New Amsterdam was established at the foot of Manhattan Island . To legalize the settlement, Peter Miniut , the Dutch governor , paid the Indians in merchandise worth 60 Dutch guilders (about $24.) The Dutch established several settlements along the Hudson, mostly for the purposes of trade. However, they recognized the need to establish farms to support the trading industry.

The first families that the Dutch West India Company brought to settle in New Amsterdam and Rensselaerwyck were primarily Huguenots . Even though the families were fleeing persecution by the French , the conditions in the New World were very primitive. The Dutch West India Company recognized that the head of a household was willing to work harder and defend the town if he had an interest in his residence. New Amsterdam Drawing The Dutch West India Company issued land patents to residents provided they met certain requirements. At the end of a period, a man could hold title to land. For most men, this was something that was not possible in Europe at this time. Thus, men who did not have an opportunity to own land in the Netherlands , became landowners in the New World. When an English fleet sailed into New York harbor in 1664, Peter Stuyvesant , the governor, surrendered without a fight. Although controversy ensued for several years, the colony was firmly in English hands by 1669. Under the English it was renamed New York, for the Duke of York . Despite this change in ownership and sovereignty, the English crown recognized most of the patents that the Dutch West India Company granted prior to 1664.

The various English Governors continued to grant land patents to groups of men who together improved the land. The Nieuw Haarlem (New Harlem) Patent , Schenectady Patent , and the Great Nine Partners Patent are examples of such patents. In some cases the Dutch West India Company issued a very large land grant to a single man. Such was the case with the Van Rensselaer family and Rensselaerwijk. The English king also made large land grants that were known as manors, such as the Manor of Cortlandt , Manor of Livingston , etc. Benjamin West’s painting of the delegations at the Treaty of Paris: John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens, and William Temple Franklin. The British delegation refused to pose, and the painting was never completed. The European war between France and England had its counterpart in North America . The French, established along the St. Lawrence and in Quebec , made a number of forays into northern and central New York. The strong Five Nations federation of the Iroquois aligned itself with the English in New York and New England because of aid given earlier by the French to the rival Algonquian . This warfare discouraged settlement beyond Albany.

The military situation was brought to a conclusion in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris , which confirmed English dominance of the New York region. A gradual but steady movement of settlers from New England was the beginning of New York’s population explosion. The New Englanders moved across the borders of Connecticut and Massachusetts , some remaining on the east bank of the Hudson, others passing through Albany to the interior. In 1698 the colony’s population was about 18,000, two-thirds of it concentrated in and around New York City. By the eve of the American Revolution , it had grown to 163,000, with the concentration nearly exactly reversed, but New York still ranked only seventh among the American colonies . Dutch culture remained strong in New York City and in Albany, while most of the settlements in the interior had a flavor and dialect of the New England Yankee ; there were also several German communities. This emerging pattern of cultural heterogeneity was later to have a considerable influence on the politics of the state, as were the waves of immigration from Europe that followed the war and continued well into the 20th century.

Mission Statement ..to collect and preserve information regarding the early history of the Stoutenburgh and Teller families in America... Fort Orange Fort Orange Fort Orange is the name given to the fur trading post erected in 1624 on the west bank of the Hudson just south of the future site of Albany . The Dutch West India Company built similar structures to serve as their headquarters in many parts of their worldwide trading empire. The small, wooden structure with four bastions shown below was to be the West India Company's official outpost in the upper Hudson Region. The Company staffed the "fort" with employees to conduct business, kept a small detachment of soldiers to protect the outpost and maintain order, and sponsored a number of farmers to provide food and other necessities. Some of each of those groups of settlers lived in small huts within the fort. The others lived in separate structures located outside the walls. However, before long, employees, soldiers, and farmers alike realized the great potential of bartering for furs and many of those living in the area committed their best energies to securing beaver and other skins from Native American hunters.

By 1639, the Company realized the folly of trying to maintain its fur trading monopoly and instead sought to tax the furs exported from Fort Orange. By the 1640s, these new traders had come together in a community of interest surrounding but mostly north of the fort. In 1652, a court was created to help structure activities in the fledgling, multi-purpose settlement called Beverwyck . By that time, the almost annual spring overflow of the Hudson had taken its toll on flood plain-sited Fort Orange. As the fur trade became less and less profitable to the West India Company, the company committed fewer resources to maintaining Fort Orange. During the late 1640s, New Netherland Governor Petrus Stuyvesant sought to rehabilitate the fort as a military outpost and also granted permits to individual traders to build within the fort's walls. However, despite considerable refurbishing, his efforts were short-lived. With the emergence of Beverwyck and another devastating flood in 1654, this initial center of settlement was all but abandoned by the end of the decade.

In 1664, New Netherland fell to the English and Beverwyck was renamed "Albany." Fort Orange fell into further decay as the English looked instead to a more elevated location for their headquarters. By 1676, the English had built a new fort overlooking the community on upper State Street . As time passed, the image of Fort Orange faded from view. In 1687, the new city of Albany sold the land around the old fort to the Dutch Reformed Church for use as pastureland. The ruins remained. During the eighteenth century it was shown on contemporary maps and labeled "ruins of an Old Fort." By 1769, traveler Richard Smith observed that there was "nothing to be seen of Fort Orange . . . but the Ditch which surrounded it." During the 1790s, a large home (called a "mansion") and a number of outbuildings were built on the site for Simeon De Witt - afterwards surveyor-general of New York State. Following De Witt's death, the property then became the "Fort Orange Hotel" and was a well-known establishment opposite the steamboat landing.

It burned in the fire of 1848 and a new Fort Orange Hotel was built on the site afterwards. In 1886, a bronze tablet was erected on the site to commemorate the bicentennial of Albany's chartering . It was moved to its present location perhaps during railroad construction or the building of the Dunn Memorial Bridge in 1930. In 1971, archeological excavations preceding highway construction unearthed a large portion of the original fort. In 1993, the location was declared a National Historical Landmark. notes An exposition on"Fort Orange" is basic to any comprehensive history of Albany. Although first hand study of Albany's original incarnation is beyond the scope of the Colonial Albany Social History Project , still this section must be more fully developed. Any consideration of the topic must begin with Paul R. Huey's comprehensive historical/archeological study entitled: "Aspects of Continuity and Change in Colonial Dutch Material Culture at Fort Orange, 1624-1664" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1988). That work provides a detailed history of the use of that site over more than 350 years.

See also Wikipedia . Historical artist Len Tantillo 's first visualization of Huey's scholarship in a painting entitled "Fort Orange, 1635" offers the most engaging access to this historical icon. Almost three decades later, it has become a standard feature of American History textbooks. A more recent version of the subject offers another interesting even inspiring perspective . More on all of this in the future! Detail showing location of Fort Orange from a seventeenth-century map in the Library of Congress . The map detail and discussion of West India Company "forts" are from Visions of New York State: The Historical Art of L. F. Tantillo (Wappingers Falls, NY, 1986), 46-47. These farmers were called "Walloons" - French-speaking Protestants from the Spanish Netherlands. Thirty families were sent to New Netherland with perhaps half of them finding their way to the vicinity of Fort Orange. Colonial Albany's De Foreest (Defreest) family was part of that group. Drawing showing location of Fort Orange on a modern sketch of Albany's riverfront arterial. Printed in Tantillo, Visions of New York State, 46.

Colonial America Colonial America From the first settlement at Jamestown in 1607 early America's colonies enjoyed a slow but steady growth. Most of the colonies' population ---approximately 2,500,000 by 1775--- lived east of the Allegheny mountains. Most of the colonists were English or of English descent. Nearly all spoke English. Second in numbers were the Germans in Pennsylvania, the Dutch in New York, and the Irish and Scotch-Irish who had settled to some extent throughout all of the colonies. The original thirteen colonies were Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Virginia. Quebec Early History Since many continental explorations began in the region, Quebec has been called the cradle of Canada. In 1534, Jacques Cartier planted a cross on the Gaspé and the following year he sailed up the St. Lawrence. In 1608, Samuel de Champlain built a trading post on the site of the present-day Quebec city, and from this and subsequent settlements Catholic missionaries, explorers, and fur traders penetrated the North American continent.

The activities of private fur-trading companies ended, for a time, in 1663 when Louis XIV made the region, then known as New France, a royal colony and chose Jean Baptiste Talon to be intendant, or administrator. The long struggle to protect the colony and the fur trade from the Iroquois (other tribes were allies of the French) and the British was effectively lost in 1759, when the British defeated the French on the Plains of Abraham (see Abraham, Plains of). By the Treaty of Paris of 1763, Great Britain acquired New France. In an attempt to conciliate the French inhabitants, the British passed the Quebec Act of 1774, under which the colony was allowed to continue its semifeudal system of land tenure and to retain its language, religion, legal system, and customs. After the American Revolution, many British Loyalists came to settle in Quebec. By the Constitutional Act of 1791 the British separated the area west of the Ottawa River and created the colony of Upper Canada (now Ontario) there. Quebec became known as Lower Canada, and in 1791 the first elective assembly was introduced.

Montreal History A stockaded Native American village, Hochelaga, was found on the site (1535) by Cartier, and the island was visited in 1603 by Champlain, but it was not settled by the French until 1642, when a band of priests, nuns, and settlers under Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, founded the Ville Marie de Montréal. The settlement grew to become an important center of the fur trade and the starting point for the western expeditions of Jolliet, Marquette, La Salle, Vérendrye, and Duluth. It was fortified in 1725 and remained in French possession until 1760, when Vaudreuil de Cavagnal surrendered it to British forces under Amherst. Americans under Richard Montgomery occupied it briefly (1775–76) during the American Revolution. A Brief History of Albany Henry Hudson, with the support of 18 crew members on the small ship Half Moon, was the first explorer to venture up the 'River" from Manhattan.

Commissioned by the Dutch East India Company in 1609 to report on the new world, Hudson told of the magnificent river, and the bounty of Albany, then known as Fort Orange. The Dutch ignored Hudson's observations until 1613, when the East India Company sent five more vessels on Hudson's course. This time, the aggressive explorers set about gathering proof of the region's assets, mostly in the form of impressive furs. In 1621 the Dutch established the colony of New Netherland, with the intent of developing trading posts in Manhattan, and in Albany. A few years later 18 French Huguenot families, along with soldiers and traders, settled in Fort Orange. Fort Orange remained in Dutch control, with nearly 10,000 settlers, until 1664 when the English sailed over in four warships. They easily took control of Manhattan, and then ventured up the river to capture Fort Orange for "His Majesty". Fort Orange was renamed to honor the Duke of Albany, and in 1686 the British granted Albany a founding charter as a city.

Virginia (1607) - Established by the London Company New Jersey (1618) - Originally settled by the Dutch, but seized by the English in 1664. Massachusetts (1620) - Founded as two colonies: Plymouth Colony (1620), settled by the Pilgrims; and Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630), settled by the Puritans. They were united in 1691, and annexed Maine, which had been colonized by the New England Council in the 1620's. New Hampshire (1622) - Originally part of Maine, then a colony from 1629 until annexed by Massachusetts, 1641-1643. Became a separate colony again in 1679. Pennsylvania (1623) - Originally settled by Dutch and Swedes. Came under English control in the 1664 and was granted to William Penn by Charles II in 1681. New York (1624) - Founded as New Netherland by the Dutch West India Company. Seized by the English in 1664 and renamed.

Maryland (1634) - Granted to Lord Baltimore. Connecticut (1635) - Founded by settlers from Massachusetts and other colonies. New Haven Colony, founded by settlers from Massachusetts in 1638, annexed to Connecticut in 1662, when the older colony was granted a royal charter. Rhode Island (1636) - Settled by two groups from Massachusetts and united in 1644. Chartered by King Charles II in 1663. Delaware (1638) - Settled by Swedes; seized by the Dutch in 1655 and by the English in 1664. Granted to William Penn in 1682. North Carolina (1653) - Settled by pioneers from other colonies. Carolina was separated from Virginia and granted to a private company in 1663; divided into two colonies in 1711. Made a royal providence in 1729. South Carolina (1670) - Originally part of Carolina Colony.

Was separated from North Carolina in 1711, and became a royal providence in 1729. Georgia (1733) - Granted to a private company by George II in 1732 and settled a year later in Savannah.

Question: Which city in New York State was settled by the Dutch in 1624 and originally known as Fort Orange?
Answer: ALBANY